Ryse: Son Of Rome Review

by Anthony Gabb

So far with the release of the Xbox One, it has done an amazing job in pumping out a killer set of Day One releases which show off the powerful uniqueness of the next-gen console. With titles such as Forza 5 the visual portrayal is flawless, not to mention Ryse also takes the cake as a visual stunning masterpiece, however looks can be deceiving.

Ryse Up Sons Of Rome

Ryse sees the crumbling of Rome as allied centurion forces band together to defend their homeland from a Barbarian assault. During the assault Marius the main protagonist of Ryse is seen escorting the Roman Emperor Nero into a secret chamber where the both of them conceal themselves within. Exchanging very cryptic dialogue to the Emperor, Marius tells his story to the Emperor, which takes the player back to Marius’s earlier life as a normal centurion and sets the stage for the player to unravel, and understand how the events at the game’s opening scenes came to be.

Ryse’s visuals are amazing and shows off substantially the powerful graphics of the Xbox One. Crytek have done a superb job in telling a story using powerful narratives and cinematic’s, which makes it more convincing and appealing.

With 900 pure resolution and a smooth frame rate, Ryse’s environments look amazing, as well as the character animations. Even while the player is over crowded with enemies the game still manages to look as clear as ever. The graphics are so powerful that while bashing and slashing the attacks looks so fierce and brutal that it’s very convincing.

On The Field Of Mars

However although it may look like an Aphrodite’s portrayal, the combat gameplay is the only catalyst that brings the games bar down substantially. About halfway through the game the player will already have experienced the combat potential of Ryse. Combat is very repetitive and dull as there are only three types of attacks, which are shield bashing and slashing before a finisher is opened up. Attacks can be easily countered with a single press of the button, which once mastered and incorporated into shield bashing and sword slashing this is about all there is to the games combat side. There is a lack of further combos as there is no inclusion of unlockable combo moves. Most of the upgrades are passive unlockable such as health upgrades, although it does have unlockable finishers this is about all there is to Ryse combat enhancements.

Although Ryse’s combat may be repetitive the enemies and bosses come in a variety. Some are unblockable, some have regenerating health, some can charge at you and some use lethal two-handed flurry attacks, which helps changes the pace from hacking and slashing to evade and slash. However bosses are not really a challenge, some bosses are faced twice and are repetitive and have no particular attack patterns, which doesn’t really offer much challenge.

Brutal Executions are executed with simple taps of the X and Y buttons. The colors blue (X) and yellow (Y) will be displayed once the player damages the enemies health to critical telling the player which buttons to hit to perform the execution. Even if the player doesn’t hit the right buttons the execution is still carried out, which sounds good but where’s the challenge in that?

Multiplayer modes let the player disembowel enemies with a friend in a constantly changing coliseum, which provides different terrain weapons to help both players conquer their online objective. Also God bonuses can be selected, which enable both players to carry into the online multiplayer a unique trait for example a player can equip a God statue that allows them to regenerate health when they execute a finisher. Although this may sound interesting after a while the gameplay tends to get repetitive and the loss of interest can be achieved quite quickly.

Ryse Son Of Rome Review

7 / 10 stars

Ryse is a fantastically illustrated game with a strong storyline, strong acting and convincing dialogue. The powerful graphics and audio included in the title really uplift the games potential, however due to the limited combat, unlockables and repetitive lack of strategy bosses, it takes away a lot from the title.